Dear Jack
by MashPotatoeSquishBanana
Summary: It's 1914, and the bombs of WW1 shake the Earth. Jack and Rose, childhood lovers, are torn apart by the compulsory conscription law. How will their love manage to stay alive in a world that's being blown apart? How many "I'm sorry" "I miss you so much" "I'm scared" letters will get lost in the trenches before they begin to lose each other?


**A quick note: Cal is about the same age as Rose and Jack in this story (19, 20)**

_Rose._

_The two things I miss the most besides you are my pen and portfolio. I know it's strange to think about, but here in France, the scenery is actually gorgeous, if you ignore the sounds of gunshots and bombs exploding in the background, the smoke from fire and the smell of rotting bodies. The sunsets are so vibrant, and the sky so blue during the day. If the heat weren't so unbearable, after this war is over, I would bring you here. I would draw you right where I'm sitting now. I can imagine you, Rose. You would fit in perfectly in this setting. Without the trenches and barbed wire ruining it, the grass is so green, the flowers so colourful. I can imagine your hair blowing in the wind, your laugh. Every time my troop is called in to battle, I kiss your picture._

_It's my favourite picture of you. Do you remember the day I took you for a picnic up on the cliffs? I drew you standing at the edge with your arms spread. You looked like an angel. Every time I go into battle, I know I could die. I want you to be the last thing I think of. Every day it seems more likely I won't come home, Rose. _

_They told us the war would be over in a matter of weeks, but the weeks drag on into months. I don't even know the date. All I know is that every day, I miss you more and more. One day, there'll be so much pain in me from missing you that I'll just keel over and die even before I even get shot._

_I'm being called. I don't want to go. It's nice, sitting under this tree, looking out across the valley and pretending you're with me. I'm peaceful. _

_But now there's a bell sounding. I've got to go. I'll give this letter to a Tommy for safe keeping. _

_Just in case I don't come back._

_I love you more than anything, Rose._

_Never forget that. Never let go of that. _

_Jack_

Rose held the grubby slip of paper close to her heart for a second, fighting tears, hunched over from the ache in her heart.

It had hit her, like it always did. The familiar writing, so dear to her heart. The elegant script that only an artist's steady, dexterous fingers could produce.

The thought of Jack's art made her sad. His hands, slender and long, had been made for creativity, not violence. She could tell just from the slanted, carefully formed characters that Jack missed art. He craved it, the feeling of a pen scratching along paper, the pen in his hand merely a portal from mind to matter, the flow of ink turning a few simple lines into a master piece.

Just thinking about him, and his missed opportunities made Rose tear up.

She could imagine him sitting there under that tree like he had described, serenely puffing on a hand rolled cigarette, holding her picture close to his heart, admiring the scenery in the middle of a war.

Rose smiled wistfully. That was her Jack.

After reading the letter a few times to commit his words to memory, she knelt up on her bed and reached for a decorated box on the top shelf of her cupboard.

She brought it down onto her bed and stared at the name on the box for a second— _Jack_— before lifting the lid and slipping the letter carefully inside to rest on top of all its predecessors.

Rose found a pencil on her desk and a neat piece of paper, the clean stark white of it a sharp contrast to the filthy, crumpled paper Jack's beautiful words were written on.

_Dear Jack, _she wrote, and put the pen to her mouth, wondering what to write. She didn't want to write to him about the weather, or whom was courting whom, or what new pretty outfit her mother had bought for her with borrowed money. She was tired of _pretending _that everything was normal.

_Are you still alive?_

_Do you still love me?_

She angrily scribbled out all the unanswered questions she had racing around her head and settled for the only news she had for him.

_Mother has arranged a marriage for me with Caledon Hockley, the rich bastard who was inappropriate with me that day in the park._

_I won't. I refuse. I'll run away. I'll go to France and wait for you at the Eiffel Tower. _

Rose began to cry as the pen moved furiously across the page by its own account.

_I'd wait forever for you, Jack._

_I miss you._

_Love,_

_Rose_

**Not sure where this is going, and I'm not sure when I'll update next, if I do even update again. **

**It was just a spur of the moment idea that I'm sort of proud of.**

_**MashPotatoeSquishBanana :)**_


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